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Show Rationing Chief Lauds Public for Cooperation Most 'Kicks' Come From Pressure Groups, OPA Administrator Points Out. By Leon Henderson Administrator of the OPA (Because the present rationing program pro-gram is of paramount interest to every person, this paper presents an exclusive article written for members of the Western West-ern Newspaper Union syndicate by Leon Henderson, price control administrator. The views expressed are those of Mr. Henderson.) There are still a lot of rough spots in rationing, but we know we're on the right track because most of the kicks we're getting are coming from the pressure groups, and comparatively com-paratively few from the public. pub-lic. And so more and more rationing ra-tioning becomes necessary, we're going to make more mistakes. But we're going to find thpm out, and cure them one at a time because that's the way progress is made. While rationing on the modern scale is unprecedented, rationing itself, it-self, is nothing new to Americans. As a matter of fact, it's older than our government itself because the Pilgrims used it at Plymouth Rock to weather the hardships of days of scarcity. Washington, of course, was the nation's first rationing administrator. ad-ministrator. Indomitable courage, and rationing, brought his men through Valley Forge. Rationing played a great part in the settling of the West because many of those hardy pioneers would never have made it across the desert if they hadn't pooled all their supplies and shared alike. Fight for Life Itself. Now that our nation faces a fight for life itself, we're using this valuable valu-able tool to insure the necessities of life to every American so that we can all pitch in on the one big job of winning the war. That's what rationing ra-tioning really amounts to. The public, pub-lic, I believe, is realizing that rationing ra-tioning is a protective measure for the individual and the country instead in-stead of an unnecessary restrictive device, and they are supporting it, by and large, as they are supporting our other necessary war measures. Most of the criticisms that come to us from the public are from people who really don't understand the purposes pur-poses of rationing programs and why they are necessary, or those who have been misled by selfish interests in-terests seeking to destroy rationing, into the belief that it is not necessary, neces-sary, or that it is being done simply to make our people aware of the seriousness of the war. Six Commodities Rationed. In the first eight months of war for our country, we have had to ration six commodities: sugar, tires, autos, typewriters, bicycles, and in the East, gasoline. Very briefly, here are the reasons: We can't ship enough sugar into the United States to give everyone all he wants of it; therefore, we ration sugar so everyone can have a fair share. Our principal source of rubber rub-ber is cut off; we can't make enough tires for everyone; therefore, there-fore, we ration tires to serve our country's most vital needs. We need our auto factories for war production. No more autos. So we ration what autos we have on hand to serve the country's greatest needs. We need all the typewriter factories fac-tories for roanufacture of shells, gun parts and other war supplies. sup-plies. Typewriter production stops, so we ration the typewriters typewrit-ers we have on hand to meet our most essential needs. We need the metals and rubber that go into bicycles, for war production. No more bicycles. So we ration the bicycles we have left to those who really need them. In the East, we can't get enough gasoline because we haven't enough tankers or other facilities to transport all it takes to run all cars as usual without hampering our war effort. So we ration gasoline to give-every essential user enough for his actual ac-tual needs. Each Problem a New One. While the underlying purposes of these rationing programs can be stated that simply, the working out of the machinery to make them effective ef-fective and fair to our 130 million people is quite another matter. Even if ' we had the benefit of long experience ex-perience in such work, the launch.-ing launch.-ing of a new rationing program would still be a man-sized job. But to work out rationing systems for Constructive Criticism Invited The public has been wonderfully wonder-fully patient because most people peo-ple know how difficult such a job must be. The constructive criticism of the large numbers of persons who have written to us, and of the loyal newspapers of the country have been a great aid in helping us plan soundly. We eagerly invite such constructive construc-tive criticism. Henderson. ' 130 million people is something new under the sun. Never before in history his-tory has it been done. Every problem prob-lem that arises is a new problem. We can't call in the experts, because be-cause there are no experts. We have to work it out on what seems to be the soundest possible basis, and when we find we're wrong, and our plans don't work, we have to go back and change them. We're learning as we go. But we have been beset on the other hand by another kind of criticism criti-cism that has not been helpful. Our rationing programs have been subjected sub-jected to criticisms and attacks from enemy and selfish interests whose sole purpose was to destroy public confidence in rationing; to wreck the system. These enemy attacks were designed de-signed to hamper our war effort by spreading confusion and dissatisfaction dissatisfac-tion on the home front as one phase of the Axis propaganda activities in the United States. This of course emanated from the offices of the former Bund members and other enemy agents and is dealt with whenever the FBI breaks up the work of spies and saboteurs. Downright Selfishness. But the other is the result of downright down-right selfishness as opposed to the higher interests of our war effort. There have been some and fortunately fortu-nately the number is small considering consid-ering the size of our country who He r W'-J I' & L. it J-' V I f J fa"ljA J V: : : . - 3-1 ! v Jlj 4 Like millions of other housewives throughout the U. S-, Mrs. Leon Henderson, wife of the Office of Price Administration's head, went through the routine of registering for her sugar rationing book. Dr. Elmer S. Newton, superintendent of Western high school, Washington, D. C, is filling fill-ing out the application blank for Mrs. Henderson. The other lady on the left is Mrs. Henry Wallace, wife of the vice president. |